


Lay Me Down

by FoxDragon



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst but kinda happy?, Canonical Character Death, Funeral, Fíli as King, IDK Funerals are complicated, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-24 16:04:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2587508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoxDragon/pseuds/FoxDragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Instead of sailing to the Grey Heavens with Frodo at the end of Return Of The King, Bilbo chooses to die in Rivendell, where Fili, Kili and many others gather during his final days, then together bring his body to Erebor, to be laid beneath the mountain alongside Thorin's tomb.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lay Me Down

**Author's Note:**

> So this idea WOULD NOT leave me until I wrote it, it's sad and also kind of not? IDK...
> 
> Beta'd by the ever so generous Isimun http://archiveofourown.org/users/Isimun/pseuds/Isimun

“Don’t look sad Kili.”

Frodo paused with his hand a breath away from the door to his uncle’s room in the peaceful home of Rivendell. It wasn’t latched, there was no point these days. Despite all of Lord Elrond’s best care, age was taking its due, and Bilbo’s strength had rapidly faded until he could barely lift himself from his bed. It would not be long now, the elf had told him earlier in a low tone. Bilbo would not be long left in this world.

He hadn’t left the room for long, his uncle had been sleeping and Sam had insisted he visit the kitchen normally a quick and quiet trip that had taken longer than planned, apparently some important people from a distant kingdom had recently arrived in the valley and it was causing a bit of a commotion. He had hurried back to his uncle’s room once they had managed to gather a quick meal, but now he hesitated in his return. 

It sounded like Bilbo was hallucinating again. It was happening more and more these days. Speaking to those who were not there, conversing with strangers Frodo had never met, whom lived only in his mind. He recognized the name Kili, there had been times when he had been a young faunt, full of energy and mischief, when Bilbo had scolded him by accident using the wrong names.

Kili and Fili, he had used them interchangeably, and sometimes both at once, and always when he realized his mistake his face had twisted for the barest of moments with grief. Kili and Fili, Frodo had gathered, were young dwarves that had been a part of his uncle’s adventures, although he wasn’t sure exactly which ones they had been. Bilbo had been rarely willing to name the dwarves in his tales.

Still. Frodo squared his shoulders. His uncle was dying, and hallucinations or no, he would be there for him. No matter how many times Bilbo called him by the wrong name.

Before he could push the door fully open however, an unknown voice _answered_ Bilbo.

“I look sad because I am uncle, I cannot change that.” Frodo blinked, there was someone else in the room? A thought occurred to him then as he remembered one of the elves in the kitchen mentioning the visitors had come from the distant east, Erebor was in the east. The dwarves Bilbo had journeyed with so many years ago, those who still lived at least, lived there… Perhaps the _real_ Kili…?

Bilbo harrumphed and then started to cough and Frodo slowly pushed the door open enough to peer into the room. A broad shouldered dwarf with dark black hair and beard held back in tidy braids bound in silver beads sat in the chair near the head of Bilbo’s bed, cradling a thin frail hand between his own strong and comparably massive paws. 

A second Dwarf came into view as Bilbo coughed into a weak fist, his hair and beard were gold as the sun, their riot tamed by braided beads, and a thin crown of shimmering silver metal that echoed the sheen of the armor shirt Bilbo had given Frodo to protect him in his quest. This dwarf carried a glass goblet carefully, bringing it to Bilbo’s mouth as the other steadied his head.

“Here uncle, drink.” He coaxed and after a couple of swallows soothed his cough Bilbo gave the golden dwarf a weak smile. “Ahhh Fili… you’ve grown into such a proud lion, he would be so proud of you…” his head lolled slightly as he turned his gaze to the dark one, Kili Frodo assumed. “So very proud of you both.”

Kili soothed Bilbo back to the pillows. “Rest uncle, save your strength…”

So those dwarves must be Fili and Kili, Frodo mused, but that revelation raised a new and far more demanding question… Why were they calling _Bilbo_ uncle. He stepped slowly around the door, into the room.

Bilbo waved weakly at Kili. “Oh hush. I’ve little enough strength left to waste on saving. I’m not too far gone to know I’m dying.”

He must have made a sound then, because both dwarves turned as one to look at him and the motion caught Bilbo’s attention. He smiled weakly and beckoned. “Frodo… Frodo my lad come here…”

He approached the side of the bed that was empty, eyeing the pair across from him with uncertainty. Bilbo grasped his hand as soon as he was close enough, and there was little strength left in his old joints as he did. He looked to the dwarves.

Fili, Kili, this is Frodo. I would ask of you to hold him as family, to watch over him when I am gone.”

“Uncle” Frodo’s voice broke. “Don’t speak like that, you aren’t going anywhere!”

Fili stepped around the bed and laid hands, heavy and scarred and strong, upon Frodo’s shoulders. “We will, uncle. You have my word upon my sword, and upon my throne. Frodo shall ever be known to the sons of Durin.”

Frodo pulled away from him, accusation in his eyes behind the welling tears. “How can you say that?! How can just accept-“ He was pulled into a warm embrace against a chest nearly as unyielding as the stone dwarves were said to be carved from but far warmer.

“I know it is hard cousin, but fighting will only make it harder. Bilbo is leaving us now, but take joy as well, as he leave us behind, so too does he leave his pain, his emptiness. He will be whole again soon, strong and full and warm forever.” Fili rested his head on Frodo’s curls as he spoke, voice thick with his own emotion as his brother came to wrap his arms around them both.

They stood together for a long moment before Frodo gathered himself and pushed the two away. “I don’t know you.” He said simply, mistrust in his voice. The road to Mordor had been long and difficult and had left its scars on him, mind and body, and where once he would have greeted these strangers that his uncle knew with warmth and welcome, he now eyed them with wary uncertainty. 

Bilbo gave a small smile as the brothers glanced at each other and then, on an unspoken agreement, chorused

“Fili” “and Kili”

“At your service”

Kili then nudged his brother with his elbow. “Although he’s technically all kingly and responsible these days so not really properly at your service, prior obligations and all that.”

Frodo blinked mutely. A king?

Fili rolled his eyes. “Bilbo has told you about how he helped us reclaim Erebor from Smaug right?”

He nodded. “Yes but…” he glanced at his uncle whose eyes were drooping as he drifted to sleep once more. “He told me the stories but he didn’t really say much about who was who… I think… I think remembering too much of it was hard for him.”

Kili pulled over another chair from the corner of the room for Frodo to sit on while he and Fili settled back on the chairs they had already moved next to the bed, shifting them so they could talk to Frodo more easily while Fili explained.

“I suppose I can understand that, our uncle was Thorin Oakenshield, it was he who led the expedition to fight the dragon. He died though, in the great battle at the end. The battle of the Five Armies.”

He looked down at his scarred hands for a moment. “I suppose if you don’t even know our names then there is a lot we need to explain…” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

For much of the next day Fili and Kili, joined at times by their mother Dis and other dwarves that Frodo did not know and his friends from the company, lingered in Bilbo’s sick room as the ancient hobbit drifted in and out of waking awareness. In low voices they conversed and Frodo found himself astonished to discover that his uncle had loved, and in turn been loved by, one of the dwarves he had journeyed east with all those long years ago.

Thorin Oakenshield, the only of the company to have fallen in the great battle, who was the rightful king of Erebor, and who had called Frodo’s uncle his ‘One’. 

Even more astonishing had been the revelation that, with his final breaths as he lay dying from his wounds, the King had wed Bilbo, a simple gentlehobbit of the Shire, and as such Bilbo’s name was forever wrought in stone as Husband of the late King, Consort Under the Mountain.

That conversation led to the reason behind the presence of so many dwarves from the noble families of Gimli’s home. Upon Bilbo’s passing his body would be carried to Erebor where he would be laid within a stone tomb beside his husband to join him forever. This was apparently the old hobbit’s final wish, which he had relayed to Lord Elrond during the early days of his stay in Rivendell, when it first became apparent to him that he would be unable to complete the journey to the lonely mountain under his own power.

Frodo learned many things about his favored uncle in those hours, things he had never imagined and could scarcely believe. 

They gathered around the bed and talked for long quiet hours as slowly Bilbo’s breath became deeper, harsher, and his strength began to fade. As the morning light dawned as many as could manage pressed into the spaces around him, called to grant their final farewell.

Pippin and Merry and Sam all crowded around Frodo who held his uncle’s left hand while Fili and Kili cradled his right together, their mother and an elf with deep red hair that Frodo did not know close behind them. Gandalf had arrived just hours prior, Aragorn in tow along with the largest man Frodo had ever seen, and stood at the end of the bed softly rubbing away the cold from Bilbo’s toes as he slowly slipped from world, surrounded on all sides by dear friends and family.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The journey to Erebor took far fewer days than Frodo had expected, Legolas’ kin, the Elves of Mirkwood, met them at the edge of the forest. It was there that Frodo learned the name of the red haired elf, Tauriel, who was a dear friend to Kili (and it seemed to Frodo that she was more than simply a friend, but he did not ask, the dwarves traveling with them were already giving Legolas, who never let Gimli far from his sight, rather pinched looks).

They passed through the near empty forest in a strange, shuttered silence, and emerged on the other side to find a host of men awaiting their arrival. They were led by an aging man who introduced himself as King Bain, and told Frodo of how he had met Bilbo when he was only a boy, when his father Bard slew the dragon Smaug and set the path to rebuild the city of Dale, where He stood as king and had named his second born son, Prince Bill, in honor of the hobbit he had known so briefly so many years ago.

The men joined their procession as they boarded a fleet of waiting ships that brought them across the lake, to a dockyard at the foot of a great mountain where they found the road winding up into Dale and to the great gates beyond was lined by those who had never known Bilbo, had heard of him only in song and story, who had come to welcome him to his final home.

It was a strange and surreal feeling to see so many who had come to receive his Uncle, when few in the Shire where Bilbo had been born and lived nearly all of his years would spare more than a few moments to mourn his passing. Children dropped flowers on the road, or ran up to the sides of the wagon that bore his coffin, to lay the blooms within it, and by the time the gates approached much of the sides were covered petals.

As they began to pass within the gates of Erebor, their path was lined now with an honor guard of dwarves from the mountain, and behind them it’s citizens. A chant began to rise up in the strange, guttural tongue of the Dwarves and Kili who had moved to walk beside him leaned over to Frodo and whispered in his ear “It is a traditional lament for a death among the royal line, there weren’t enough of us after the great battle so to be honest this is the first time the mountain has seen a proper mourning procession like this. The body will be carried through the streets for all to pay homage, then we will take him to be laid in the stones with Thorin.”

Frodo looked around with wide eyes at the hundreds of dwarves, none of whom had ever known his uncle, but all of whom seemed truly and deeply saddened. Many even wept! Tears, for a hobbit they had never known, for a consort whose King had died before ever truly wearing the crown, and who had lived out the last of his years far, far away, in a land none of them might ever see.

“They mourn him…” He said softly, humbled by what he saw. “They never knew him, not at all, and they mourn him as if he were their own.”

Kili settled a hand on his shoulder as the procession began to descend to the depths of the tombs. “They didn’t need to know him, because he _was_ their own.”

Frodo shook his head. “But… he wasn’t, he lived all of his life in Shire, he never came here again, not after the first time. How could he be theirs?”

“He sent letters, gave advice, his presence was felt. He may not have lived here but he never really stopped being Consort Under the Mountain. My brother’s wife has been Queen for some time, but it will only be after he is entombed that she may claim that title.”

Frodo thought on that as they entered the deep chamber where Bilbo was to be buried. Fili and Kili had already explained to him that because of the dragon, neither Thror nor Thrain had been buried under the mountain, so while statues commemorated them in other halls throughout Erebor, here the only mausoleum was of Thorin, although a second, smaller statue beside his was covered in a heavy tarp.

He already knew who it was as they carried the casket toward the deep stone sarcophagus at the covered statue’s feet and Fili took his place beside it to speak the traditional funerary rites.

As the King spoke of the mountain welcoming its own, and of the sacred halls of waiting where those who had gone before would welcome the newly departed, Gimli’s father and another old dwarf that had been introduced to him as Dwalin pulled down the tarp.

The statue of Bilbo captured him in his youth, fresh faced and merry, and entirely too lifelike in Frodo’s mind for dead stone, marble flowers bloomed at his feet and thin golden diadem that he had never worn nestled amid granite curls.

When Fili had finished his speech, Kili escorted Frodo forward to lay sting atop the wooden casket. He could see then that the cover stone was carved with a relief of Bag End, bordered with ivy, chrysanthemums and a myriad of tiny forget-me-nots. Lilies that had been brought from Mirkwood by the elves that accompanied them were laid within the tomb along with the piles of wildflowers that the children of Dale and Erebor had placed upon and within the carriage.

There was a feeling of finality as Kili herded him back from the tomb so that a team of dwarves in ceremonial armor could heave the heavy stone into place, sealing Bilbo forever into the embrace of the mountain.

The royal family retreated then: Frodo, those of the fellowship that had accompanied them, and the remaining members of the company that had reclaimed the mountain so long ago with them as the guards took up flanking positions around the fresh tomb. Over the next three days the mountain would stay in mourning, tapestries draped in red and white, and the mausoleum open for all in the mountain to visit and pay respects.

By the time the mourning was broken by a great feast to celebrate Bilbo’s passing to the halls of Mahal where (if the valar had any mercy) he would await the remaking of the world in the company of his One, the tomb had been draped in wreaths, carvings, written wishes and colorful piles of other tokens for the consort that had never lived under the mountain.

**Author's Note:**

> To clarify - Fili and Kili call Frodo cousin because technically he is, by marriage only but still, dwarves are all about the extended family so... yea.


End file.
